and he falls hard on his knees. Then he gestures once, weakly – with whatever strength he has left – with his free hand, for me to run. That's all he has in him. He topples forward. One less heartbeat, one less guard.
His ghost looks at me. Blinks and shakes his head. 'I'm so sorry,' he says.
'You have nothing to be sorry about, Travis. Nothing,' I say.
A moment later his soul flashes through me.
Rillman laughs. 'Always the professional, eh? Even when it comes to pomping your own staff. You better get used to that.'
I peer at Rillman. His hands are empty. What is he cutting with? His nails are short, neat. But I guess a man capable of changing his form, of shifting from space to space, is capable of just about anything in a fight.
My legs are like jelly, but I'm an RM, damn it! 'I've been looking for you,' I say, and my voice isn't as stern or as strong as I would like it to be.
'Yes, but not nearly hard enough,' he says. 'You're really rather awful at all this aren't you?'
I shrug.
Rillman pauses, takes a step back. 'I thought you would be more impressive. All these weeks of watching you, watching those around you… For someone with such loyal friends, you're rather disappointing.'
'You couldn't kill me with your bomb. And these insults are nothing to me'
Rillman smiles. 'That bomb wasn't meant for you.'
'You keep away from her.'
'She'll be mine when I have time for her. And you know there is nothing you can do.' He flicks his wrists in the manner of a magician. There is a thin line of grey light in his hands. It takes me a moment to realise what it is.
'Surely you're kidding.'
He's holding an old-fashioned barber's razor. But the blade is unlike any razor I've ever seen: it's made of stone and it's mumbling. This isn't good; all my encounters with mumbling blades have not been good.
'I'm afraid not, Mr de Selby.' He waves the razor around his head. 'This took me some time to fashion. You won't believe the lengths I went to to source the materials. Indeed, I only finished it this evening. I don't really expect it to do the job, but I need to try it on someone, need it blooded with good corporate blood. And why not yours? I rather expect it to hurt.'
He comes at me fast.
I try to shift, but can't. Somehow Rillman is holding me to this place, and the time I've wasted in trying to get out of here, means he's almost upon me. I duck backwards, but not nearly swiftly enough. He's come in close and he swings up and under. Then down. Almost so fast that I don't see it. Oh, but how I feel it!
The first stroke slides under my ribs, the second opens up my wrist. Both wounds blaze with agony. I kick out, and my boot makes contact, but he hops away. A dozen contradictory emotions wash across his face: hate, humour, compassion and rage among them. I can't believe I ever tried to hunt this guy. I should have been running.
'Why are you doing this?'
'It must be done. You need to learn, and I need to cut.'
Blood flowers around the incision in my shirt. I slide my fingers over the wound, quick. This shouldn't be happening. But I have survived worse injuries. He jabs towards me, and this time I am ready. I swing up with my knee. Ten years of soccer as a kid taught me something about playing nasty. There's a meaty thud on contact, a winded gasp. The bastard stumbles back and I swing a fist towards his face. My knuckles strike his nose. That's gotta hurt; it certainly hurts my fist.
Rillman blinks, steps back. His eyes narrow.
'I'm not the only one who bleeds,' I say.
Rillman takes a step towards me but then my winged Pomps arrive – shooting through the gates. Crows. The first one strikes him hard, just beneath the eye. Another takes a nip at his ear. Rillman slashes at the bird and the poor thing is sliced in two. But there's another one, and another.
In the distance comes the thwack, thwack, thwack of crows' wings beating. There are a lot of crows in Brisbane. And they are filled with my anger, cruel with my pain.
'C'mon, mate!' I growl, sweat dripping from my face, blood pouring from my wounds. I take an unsteady step towards him, pulling my hands from my belly and clenching them into fists, bloodier than they have ever been before. It's hardly threatening to an ex-Ankou, but it's all I have. I even manage a grin. 'You better finish it now or I will find you.'
'I invite you to try, Mr de Selby. You'll only be making my job easier. I think the lesson's done for today,' Rillman says, batting at the stabbing birds around him.
Suddenly, there's the sound of flesh slamming into bone. Rillman lets out a great whoomph of breath, stands there blinking.
'That's for my fucking ribs,' a newly conscious Oscar growls. 'And this is for what you did to Travis.'
He swings again and Rillman scrambles backwards, his arms flailing.
The world shivers a little, and Oscar's fist strikes air. Unbalanced, he falls. It's painful watching him get to his feet. I'd help, but I'm worried my bowels are likely to spill out the moment I move my hand.
Rillman's gone. There's just the two of us and about a hundred crows looping around in that confined space, cawing and clawing at the air where Rillman had been just a moment ago, a cacophonous cloud of wings and claws and beaks. I'm getting their view, as well as my glued-to-ground vision. I have to struggle to stop them pecking at Travis.
The gates swing open.
Oscar looks at me. 'We've got to get you out of here…' Every word comes at a cost. The big man's tan has faded to a ghostly white.
Neither of us look good, and both of us are bleeding heavily. He glances over at Travis, starts towards him.
'Too late,' I say, 'Travis is dead. Believe me, I pomped him, there's nothing we can do.'
'Ah, Jesus.' It's the first time I see anything that looks like real emotion pass across his face.
The amount of blood flowing through my fingers suggests that Rillman may not need to come back to finish the job. As a Pomp I would be dead – there's no way I could have handled this sort of injury – but my body burns with energies, long tendrils of power slowly repairing flesh and bone. Every Pomp in my employ will be feeling this as I draw strength from them. I might have a couple of resignations tomorrow. Wouldn't blame anyone.
All that crackle and pop is making me dizzy. I laugh with the head rush of it all – and it hurts. Rillman wasn't joking. I hunch into my wounds, look around me.
'Can you walk?' Oscar asks me, looking almost ready to fall on his arse himself.
'Can you?'
Oscar grins the pained grimace of a wounded bear. Not dead yet. 'See if you can shift out of here. Go and get some help,' he says.
The wounds are already knitting. I try to shift and all I get for my trouble is a bad headache. I gulp a few deep breaths and straighten my suit, then we stumble out of the tunnel and onto the street. I call Tim; it goes to voicemail.
Then I call Lissa. She doesn't answer her phone, and I realise why. I feel the stall that is distracting her. She's forty kilometres south of the city, too far away.
I key in Suzanne's number. 'I need your help. Now.'
And she's there in an instant. 'Oh, dear,' she says. 'What has Rillman done to you?'
She looks up and down the street. 'Where -? Never mind. This shouldn't have happened.'
'Brooker,' I say.
She nods. 'This is going to hurt,' she says, and holds both Oscar's and my hand.
In his surgery, Dr Brooker almost falls out of his chair, when he sees us. 'What the hell happened here?'
'I've been cut up by a bloody barber's razor made out of stone, is what,' I hiss. 'Oscar's the one you have to see to.'
'I know my job.' Dr Brooker looks at me, then Suzanne. 'Take him to his throne. I'll take care of Oscar.'
'One more time,' Suzanne says, and we shift again.
